Utica PE Teacher Keeping Kids Active with At-Home Videos

We're on week who-even-knows-anymore of the quarantine, and kids are getting restless. A physical education teacher in Utica is helping keep his students, and students everywhere, active and entertained during this trying time.

Bryan Stamboly works at General Herkimer Elementary School in Utica, and has started making TikTok videos to keep kids moving. But his at-home workouts aren't the kind of workouts you'd expect to see on TikTok.

From inside his home, Stamboly bowls, golfs, plays baseball and more, all with household items. He even sets up a small crowd, including a Stewie plush, a teddy bear and a cardboard cutout of Michael Jordan. His dog Shooter even makes an appearance in some of the videos!

Stamboly told WKTV he was feeling cooped up at home and wanted to make sure his students didn't feel discouraged. He said while his videos are meant to get kids up and moving, he also hopes they give parents a break too.

"One thing that’s neat is it's sport related and it's also time consuming," Stamboly told WKTV. "The mini golf one there took just a while to set up, let alone play, so it kind of was good for parents too because they can get their kids out of their hair and [it] gives them something to do."

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Stamboly is trying to help central New York families in the best way he knows how, and he told WKTV that the real heroes getting us through the pandemic -- essential workers.

"The front line people are the ones that should have all this credit," Stamboly told WKTV. "Between the hospital workers and the nurses and the RN's, there's other people playing different roles, and if one of them is trying to lighten the mood or be funny, I feel like I can fit that pretty well."